“Now, onto the fun part.”
Ari felt a hand grab the back of his collar as soon as Francesca’s frantic steps had faded away in the cobweb of town streets and then he was wrenched to his feet, nearly slipping over the worn, dusty paving blocks under his shoes. He’d only just caught his balance before Gus’ fist connected with his mouth, sending him stumbling until his back met the cold wall of the nearby house and he slumped against the stone, recovering from the punch. He felt the metallic taste of the wound as it stained his tongue and he looked up at the two men who had approached enough to close him off from running.
They have no idea. They have no idea…
The pressure of something – something dark, illicit, something that had slept in stasis for a long time – augmented right under his gullet, awakened and overripe like grape that was about to burst. He’d promised not to run, and he wasn’t planning to. But just like Jin, Gustav wanted him frightened, and that was something bound to eventually backfire.
“Alright, mutt,” Gustav began brightly, shoving the end of the bar into the boy’s chest to which Ari responded with a small grunt and a scowl. “Since ya lil piece of shit have done such a good job at making me look like a fuckin’ fool any chance ya get, I reckon it’s time ta settle the score.” And he grinned widely, hoping perhaps that such expression of aplomb would actually translate into making him feel as empowered as he wished he was.
Against his better judgment, Ari barked out a short, crude laughter and regarded the other with something vaguely akin to sympathy. “Oh, you mean our unnecessarily long card game? As much as I would love to, I can’t very well take all the credit for that. At the end of the day, the grand finale was all your-”
The last of his sentence exploded in his mouth. The second blow in the gut was crueler than the first but, curiously enough, it felt like more of a joke than the previous ones. Bent over a little from the impact with the dull weapon, Ari unwisely wheezed out another chuckle and reached distractedly to wipe the blood that was now trickling down his chin. The back of his hand returned to him smeared with angry red ribbons and he held the sight of the besmirched skin – strangely fascinating - for an extra moment before he switched his attention to Gus’ taut face. “So, anyway. What do you want?”
The bar was once again shoved into his chest and Ari was forced to straighten up, mustering, after a moment of struggle, an expression of polite interest as he absently sucked on his damaged lower lip. Now that Francesca was out of the picture, he didn’t have to worry about her accidentally getting hurt and the thought alone snapped loose a tightness around his lungs he hadn’t even realized was there. He could breathe now, and think, and this new situation left him curiously unhinged, too light to feel right. The metal digging into his torso was physically unsettling, but underneath, there lay an emptiness that he could sense growing bigger and colder by the second. He felt vacant, free of something he knew he should always keep close.
And it was disturbingly comforting.
I live inside a shell.
To be so empty, for a change. The memories reduced to a murmur. The need to stop holding back, exaggeratedly vivid, dripping like wet paint with possibilities.
A chest that is a husk; this body, it rings hollow like a pitcher, because the heart inside it has festered, it’s rotten, putrid, halved and sewn wrong.
The look on Gustav’s face made that little, darker part of him want to laugh. He thought that he could watch them tumble down into limp heaps of rage with the flick of a hand – these two grown up men that thought they were so in control. Let me talk to them, let me talk to them, come on, comeoncomeoncomeon… Ari blinked and resisted the urge to shake his head to clear the mess between his temples. He’d anchored himself away from anything genuinely uncontrollable such a long time ago that he wasn’t sure what he was going to do if the chain rattled. He was inches away from tiptoeing that line, that line he fought to stay clear of for his sanity’s sake. If the stink of blood drew him in, pulled him out in the open where he could no longer obey the basic laws of society-
Keep it together, Ari. Don’t let it overwhelm you.
“Do ya want me to teach ‘im not ta talk back?” Barlow muttered from his place a few steps behind his cousin, his bulky arms visibly flexing at the thought of what he could do with Ari’s bones. A brief shadow of temptation passed over Gus’ features at the offer but reason won over the drive for immediate revenge and he shook his head, never once tearing his eyes away from the boy in front of him.
“How about we try somethin’ a lil different?” Gustav offered instead, to which Ari cracked his split mouth in an exaggeratedly cheerful smile.
“Sure. What did you have in mind?” he chirped and, feeling the minor bleeding on his lip start again, he inadvertently licked at the cut, noting with satisfaction that this alone made Gustav’s nostrils flare with annoyance. Still looking for fear, aren’t we? Can’t deal with the fact that you’re finding none.
I don’t make sense, and that’s not something a fool like you can handle.
The way Gustav adjusted the bar, rewrapped his fingers around the long, cool body of metal, made him look at once unconvincing and rashly ready to lunge – it made him look weak; an animal that was unable to properly stand its ground. This was exactly what Ari had been hoping for. All he’d have to do was dally a little more with this man’s patience, with all those layers of hatred and frustration that overshadowed the goon’s ability to rationalize, and all the nice smooth edges of Gus’ ridiculous plan were going to come apart.
“Ya kno’ it’s a win-win fo’ me, either way,” Gustav said slowly, the sheen of sweat on his forehead even more noticeable now that the sun was setting and the last rosy rays shone over his moist scalp under a particularly revealing angle. “I can pummel ya right now and walk out of this content and happy. But I’m not an unreasonable person and I want ta give ya a chance. If ya offer me somethin’ on Jin Straive, somethin’ I can sell out there for good money, then I might not mess up that pretty face,” Gus let the bar move up to push under Ari’s chin, and a gleam of sheer satisfaction flashed in his dark eyes at what he thought or hoped was finally having things work out his way. He wiped his damp brow with his thumb and tilted his head to the side, adding with unnecessary pretension, “Might not mess it up too much anyway.”
What an absolute idiot.
Ari snorted before he could think better of it, cutting across his attacker’s moment of glory like a piglet that had just burst free at a wedding. Gus’ left eye twitched and the smirk he had so diligently catered for died, replaced by an expression of unmitigated frustration that only made Ari want to continue getting on the other’s nerves.
“Is that the best you could come up with?” the boy questioned with a mixture of condescension and scorn in his voice. “Please. I certainly gave you more credit than you deserved.” The iron bar immediately jabbed further into his throat, but the man holding it seemed unable to utter a sound, his mouth wriggling unnecessary with words and insults that could not quite make it to the surface. From the looks of it, Ari’s lack of fear was not just puzzling – it seemed to be injuring Gus’ already bruised dignity.
“Careful, brat,” Gustav rasped at last – anger had deformed his voice like a sickness. “’m tryin’ ta be generous ‘ere. If yer simple mutt brain can’t figure out what’s best fo’ ya, that ain’t gonna stop me from bashin’ yer head in the wall.”
“We shouldn’ have let the girl go, Gus,” Barlow spoke gruffly as he nodded in the direction in which Francesca had disappeared not too long ago. “He wouldn’t have been that cocky with her around.”
Ari’s gaze moved to level the second of his attackers with little interest. “Fantastic,” he praised dryly. “I didn’t realize you could make logical connection between events. It must be invigorating to show off like that.”
Within instant the bar was off him and then the length of it was being forcefully pressed under his chin, effectively trapping him between Gustav and the wall. Ari let out a small gasp and his hands shot out to oppose the brutal pressure on his throat which would’ve otherwise crushed his breathing passages.
“Shut yer trap, mutt,” Gus hissed, his mouth wringing into an angry jagged line as he spoke, sputtering at every other word. “And think very carefully what ya’re gonna say next. That snotty attitude ain’t gonna get ya out of this predicament, alright? Do ya really think anyone would care or bother with ya if they find yer puny lil body, black and blue, left ta rot right here in an abandoned alley like this one?”
Still trying to scare me? Ari felt his blood stir, his pulse thrumming faster with something stronger than the foamy and inconsistent might of the terror his attackers were anticipating. What do you know about fear?
“You should really-” The sneer hurt a little, his eyes focused solely on the man in front of him as every heartbeat pounded louder and louder in his ears until his pulse sounded like a slow and deafening drum. Everything around him seemed to shrink and narrow down to this one thing that cut across his vision – a person – and his patience was quivered under the surface, moving about, bubbling like a volatile liquid. “Really stop calling me that. I don’t know anything about Jin Straive, not a single thing you could ever sell. If it was that simple, I bet all his secrets would be circulating the town by now.”
The guttural noise that left Gus’ lips was ugly and derisive, and, just as in the old days, Ari sensed that the man was looking straight through him: seeing his hair, his skin, the little details that told him apart from the normal people – but none of the human mind and soul beyond. He was seeing a statue, or a foreign species, a creature – but not a boy, and that was what was disturbing, unbelievable, infuriating.
“Ya can’t convince me ya haven’ come across anything since ya moved there. Ya’re a lying, dirty mongrel, is what ya are. So what does he do with ya, huh?” Gus leaned in closer, his rancid breath making Ari’s features contort in a repulsed grimace. “Ya’ve always been an inept lil slave, haven’t ya? As useless as they get. So tell me, then, Arian, does he fuck ya?”
For a single moment, Ari’s head went completely blank – white; connections severed, useless – and then that feeling again, so slippery, of having the strings slither inch by inch from his grip. Ice edged in as the ironic undertone of his previous behavior subsided like dust, and gave him the space to hate back, to anticipate what was about to ensue.
“I beg your pardon,” Ari whispered, very slowly. “What did you just say to me?” And he saw Barlow’s face light up with sadistic joy behind his cousin’s shoulder, his own impatience and desire to hurt sniffing out the imminent violence. Gus wasn’t noticing, he was wading into a new and darkly exciting territory, where physical damage was only the very first stage of what he was trying to achieve.
“Does he pound yer ass, bitch?” Gus continued vulgarly and his nose wrinkled as though he could smell the cum and sex off Ari’s flesh. “Is that what he does t’ya? Pin ya down, make yer pretty savage mouth howl fo’ his cock?”
Barlow’s giggling was distracting. He was drawing delight from every single word that flew out of Gustav’s trap and for some reason Ari’s mind kept drawing to that, kept pulling him away from the profane malice on Gus’ face. Why is he so excited? a distuned, little voice inside Ari’s head whispered in annoyed bewilderment. Why is this making him so happy?
Focus, boy.
Ari blinked his attention back to the man with the bar and when he spoke, his voice was tight with tension, soppy with warning. “Knock those dumb thoughts out of your stupid head,” he ground out. “If you want Jin Straive’s tramp, you’ll have to look elsewhere. Even if you do find her, I doubt he’d have engaged in much of a sweet pillow talk.”
“That right? Somehow I can’t bring mahself ta believe this. I saw it in that man’s eyes; that’s what he wanted ya fo’. Lil feisty, exotic white-haired whore. Everybody knows Straive enjoys them girls an’ boys alike,” Gus turned his head to the side and spat out a gob of phlegm on the ground beside Ari’s shoe. “Have ya actually left his bed since the day he bought ya, eh? ‘s fuckin’ impressive ya can still walk – or speak for that matter.”
Ari’s shell of a skin felt fickle, flaky all of a sudden, and so loose that it could collapse off him any moment now. The awkward desire to shuck this face, this fake body off was almost too much to bear, but he held on, endured the burn of the fury which came with the assumptions these two worthless cretins ventured to make. But rather than blur his vision and mess with his head, the thoughts that ran through mind were cold and crisp; clear like glass. He looked at Barlow and the idiotic devotion painted on his asymmetric features and then at the pathetic contempt that glowed in Gustav’s gaze, and sneered, every tendon and muscle in his body drawing tight.
“I’d shut up if I were you.”
The fool just laughed, loud and long. “Ya an’ that man, ya’re like a match made in heaven, aren’t ya? Both as crazy as they get,” Gustav’s eyes were shifting back and forth between Ari’s still, immobile ones. “It must be one hell o’ a happy life. Tell me, does he kno’ jus’ how nuts ya are, or is he jus’ too rotten inside ta figure it out anymore?”
For the first time since Gus had spoken, Ari was thrown for a loop. “I’m sorry?” the boy muttered stiffly.
“Oh, yes. Think nobody’s noticed? Nobody’s seen ya mumbling? Waking up screaming? Clawin’ at yer head?” Gus’ eyes widened with morbid glee. “What kind of madness do ya keep locked up inside, eh, Ari? What do ya see? Whose voice do ya fuckin’ hear, because from what I gathe-”
He never did get to finish his train of thoughts. Ari almost regretted it later – he didn’t like being left hanging, but the thrumming in his head had grown painfully potent and the need to just make him stop already overpowered and defeated every other more rational drive. Gus was blissfully caught up in his rant, committing the same mistake he’d made so many times before in assuming that a wretched half-breed wouldn’t retaliate.
And so Ari reacted.
He hooked his heel between the other’s legs and kicked Gus sharply in the back of the knee, watching with fascination the mixture of pain and shock that erupted across the man’s features. It wasn’t such an awfully powerful strike but it achieved its mission. The element of surprise was enough to loosen the pressure that the bar kept against Ari’s throat and the boy tightened his grip, slamming the iron back in Gustav’s face before he’d managed to comprehend what was going on. The impact relinquished the hold Gus had on the make-shift weapon and Ari struck again, the second blow rewarding him with the satisfying crunch of the nose bone breaking.
Somewhere nearby Barlow let out a gasp of surprise and moved to help just as his cousin crumpled to his knees. An uncoordinated arm swung in Ari’s direction, but the boy brought the bar down on the flying fist, following that up with a quick kick in the gut and a bash to the side of the head with the edge of the metal pole. Gustav collapsed sideways, groaning and sputtering blood.
All that Ari could feel in the meantime was numbness – and anger that was gelid and slick and foreign; almost as if it wasn’t his own.
Barlow rushed to grab at him but he was too big and too slow. Ducking under the large arms, Ari brought the bar around, landing its end in the man’s ribs. To his surprise, the blow didn’t push the other back quite as far away as Ari had expected and even as he leaped back out of the danger zone, Barlow’s knuckles still managed to graze his jaw, making his teeth rattle.
You’ve lost your edge, Ari, watch carefully.
Watch. Observe. Barlow’s enraged face, his muscles, the veins, all protruding and throbbing above the swarthy skin… He could read the angles, the paths down which every single part of that massive body was going to move, like piece of a puzzle about to slide and click together. The reek of fury was bitter and strong in the ever darkening evening air, but at the same time, it was also somehow comforting.
It’s good, doesn’t it? Liberating.
Don’t feel. You don’t have to feel.
Ari dodged a few more punches, dancing around the bigger man and examining the way he responded. Barlow was attacking purely based on his instincts; not a single hint of any fighting skill proved visible in his charges and he wasn’t putting the smallest amount of thought in what he was doing. In a few minutes, he was already gasping for breath, worn out by the constant waltz with his much smaller rival. Any second now. All it was going to take was one last desperate lunge – and Ari could feel it coming. The rage and indignation was piling up behind Barlow’s eyes, raw and primitive, waiting to burst free at the smallest push.
And then it happened.
With a roar, more fitting to a bull than an actual man, Barlow launched at him with surprising speed and Ari side-stepped, narrowly missing being crushed into the bulky arms. As Barlow zoomed past him, Ari swiped under the large foot, compromising the other’s balance and in the split second that followed, swiveled to smash his weapon into the unprotected spine. A few meters away, Barlow dropped heavily on the ground, groaning and trying to collect himself – not that Ari had ever planned to give him the chance to get up. All it took was one well-measured blow to the head – and Barlow was knocked out cold.
Then Ari’s attention went back to his original objective.
Gustav was still rolling on the ground, his face ripped with rivulets of red, but when Ari approached, the noise had him struggling to look up, his blood-shot eyes filling with stubborn hatred.
“So,” Ari’s voice was soft and crinkly and as he watched the man in his feet, the anger he felt seemed to come from this distant spot inside, this cavern that only returned to him an echo of the real emotion it kept inside. And now that he was speaking, something familiar, yet slightly unsettling, something like dull pleasure, coiled in his stomach at the sight of all that he had done to the other’s face. “What did you call me, again?”
Gus made a move to stand and Ari tilted his head to the side, weighing his options. The iron bar in his hand felt feather-light, but the numbness all over his body, all over his insides, hadn’t retreated as it usually would by now. And then his mouth twisted into a smile, he swung his weapon back and let it land on the other one’s shoulders, bringing the man’s body back down to the hard ground. The pained groan that Gus emitted bounced off some far away wall and didn’t properly reach Ari’s mind as he distractedly scratched behind his ear, examining with nearly scientific interest the bleeding figure on the ground. The sun behind his back had nearly set – there was very little light left, and very little sympathy in his heart.
Or very little anything for that matter.
“What did you call me?” Ari repeated, almost gently. How dare that lowly, worthless- The disturbingly intimate need to hurt flared uncomfortably in his chest and his breath caught for an instant. He imagined cracking the guy’s skull like a fat fruit, spilling the contents across the ground into mushy ribbons, but as soon as the image arrived, it was yanked back into the recesses of his mind and he felt a wave of dizziness wash over him, only to clear out as soon as he met Gus’ disgusted gaze. “Come on, Gus,” Ari heard himself speak quietly. “I’m not going to be mad. What did you call me?”
“Ya’re Straive’s crazy lil whore.”
Oh, he likes to push.
“Are you sure about that?” Ari asked pleasantly. “Nothing else to add?”
Gustav spat out a ball of blood in the boy’s feet and Ari twisted his eyes heavenwards, unable to resist the wave of distaste and tedium that washed over him. Looks like originality isn’t exactly his forte.
Can I see his brain over the floor?
Ari thought about it for a moment, then nodded to himself. The bar was above his head so fast he barely registered he’d moved, but just as he made a step forwards, his body seemed to freeze. His sight blurred again, his mind going woozy, unclear, and then his pulse started racing faster through his veins, heating up the coldness in his fingers. What are you doing? He could sense Gustav’s eyes on him, the sneer and contempt nestled there, and that sight alone urged him to continue, the repetitive throb of those words – ‘crazy little whore’ – coerced him not to stop.But he was stopping. He was frozen stock still.
-crazycrazycrazy-…
A voice inside his head screeched with gruesome dissatisfaction. Then something shattered and anger, frustration, hesitation flooded him again, tearing his breath to ragged gasps. What am I doing?! The bar shook in his hands and his teeth clenched at the sight of the smug grin that stretched across Gus’ face.
“Can’t go through with it, can ya?”
You think you know everything?
Ari’s eyes narrowed, his vision going a little dark around the edges. The pleasant numbness was shedding from him like an old layer of skin and he wheezed a growl between his teeth as the familiar form of awareness became him again, punishing as always. The insults and challenges kept spilling from Gustav’s mouth like filthy and diseased rats. Every single one of them had already eaten itself a den inside Ari’s memory and the mere notion made his head hurt. I can’t- He pulled his weapon further back, searching the best place to strike to inflict the most pain without killing the person in his feet, but before he could do anything, a soft whoosh reach his ears, and next thing he knew he was pulled back against a solid chest and the bar was yanked out of his grip. For a single horrible instant he thought Barlow may have got up without him noticing, and he thrashed about, nearly slipping out of his attacker’s hands before an arm shot around his throat, squeezing him into a choke.
“No!” his shout came out weak when his feet practically kicked the air, and he swivelled towards the other’s elbow, managing to get a gulp of air before making a wild attempt to duck free of the clutch. The man behind him only tightened his hold, and Ari growled, using elbows, fingernails and everything else he could think of to get the other to let go. His efforts proved to be in vain, only succeeding in exhausting his last air supply and fueling his anger, until he finally registered the voice in his ear and the familiar baritone, hissing repeatedly at him to calm the fuck down.
“…What?” Ari gasped, momentarily thrown off. His body went slack, the throbbing in his ears amplified to the point where he could barely pick up on anything else, but the questions came spurring out before he could seize them. “You? What’re you doing here?”
Make an effort to talk like a slave should sometime, will you…?
Jin’s chuckle was dark, curt and shallow, but it didn’t hold the usual honey-sweet flavor of dismissiveness – instead, there was a cutting sharpness limning each ripple of the sound, turning his laughter from an expression of humour, into something that verged on dangerous. “Looks like the mutt can bite when I’m not there to kick it in the teeth. It took you a while to hear me, though, didn’t it, Arian?” The grip around Ari’s throat loosened slightly and the boy flinched at the feeling of one long spidery finger, tapping gently against his temple. “Where was your head just now, hm? Care to explain yourself, or would I have to force it out of you?”
Ari shuddered. Jin’s arms were no longer squeezing him into submission, but somehow these words alone seemed to choke him, thickening the air that he was trying to draw into his lungs and blemishing the dubious clarity of his thoughts with greasy, finger-shaped stains. Surely I can’t be that obvious-…He struggled to collect the right fragments for a proper response, but through the haze and shock, all that emerged was a sense of claustrophobia, a desire to curse and writhe until he was released. I can’t do this…
At that moment, the human pile on the ground lurched to its feet and scrambled into a limping run to get away. Before Ari could so much as think to react, he was roughly tossed to the side, barely managing to catch his balance and avoid colliding in the nearby building, when a cry of terror snapped him back around to see what was going on. His eyes took a moment to sift through the darkness and separate shadows from people, and then fixed on Jin just in time to see him grab Gustav by the hair and thrust his face into the nearest wall. It wasn’t meant to result in an actual hit and any whimpers or blubbering that were coming from Gus were a product of blood-curding fear; not real pain. Behind him, holding his victim with just one hand, Jin was merely a black tall figure painted in the tight throat of the alley, his red eyes unseen, but the presence of him absolutely unmistakable.
“I remember you,” Jin noticed airily. “You were there that day. You didn’t even recognize me immediately – you wanted to kill the mutt that bad… Gods, to think-… human beings can be so petty sometimes.”
“Please,” Gus stammered, and Ari wondered if it was a pleading for his life, his soul, or for the mercy of some miracle that would remove Jin’s cursed fingers from his hair. “Please, I’m begging you, please don’t-…”
“You’re so afraid of me.” It was a statement, not a question, and it came out flat and disinterested, like a dry and dogmatic fact. “That’s good. You should be – I’m trying to teach the brat this lesson. For now, I think we can make this faster and easier for both of us if you listen carefully.” Jin made a clicking sound with his tongue and deliberately ground Gustav’s nose into the wall, staying completely quiet while he listened to the pathetic blubbering of a grown man. “Of course, this was all a very unfortunate mess and I don’t believe there is any need to get anyone else involved. I’m sure it’s common sense, but having to provide explanation why one of my slaves has done any harm to free servants, would only cause me several unpleasant headaches… So, let’s get his straight.” Ari couldn’t be sure, but he thought he saw Jin glance in his direction, the movement so slight and brisk that it could’ve just been his mind playing tricks on him. “As you’ve heard, I’m not above dirtying my hands; in fact, I’ve found I rather enjoy it. If anyone ever hears of what happened here, I will happily hunt you down, tie you up in the woods, and peel the skin off your body strip by strip, until I get bored enough to leave you for the beasts to feast on. Is that clear?” The sob that followed must’ve been a sign of agreement, because Jin crooned in approval, evidently pacified. “Good. It was nice meeting you again.”
The last thing Ari heard was the sound of Gus’ skull being slammed in the wall and his figure collapsing, and then there was just his own breathing and the silent motions of his master’s body through the street. Jin gripped his arm without saying a thing and proceeded to roughly drag him away, shoving him behind his back every time there was a chance they might be come across any town people. To Jin’s apparent relief, they met no one, and it took Ari some time to make the proper connection why. The lord’s clothes, even in the darkness, clearly weren’t intended for travel or to conceal him from the stares of any curious eyes - they were the exact same tunic and loose cotton trousers Ari had seen on him before leaving the house; Jin hadn’t even bothered to take a hood, and now that the striking white hair was out in the open, too, their presence in the town was just asking for trouble.. The next few minutes went in complete silence – even the noise from their steps came out dull and muffled, as if the thousands of feet that had beat over these same paths during the day had ultimately worn out the stone’s ability to produce any more noise. It was only when they reached the lord’s horse and stopped beside where it was tied up behind a half-ruined building, that Ari dared to speak up in a low, reluctant murmur.
“I understand that she probably came to you and asked you to get me – I’m not particularly interested in your reasons to say yes – but what I don’t get is how you managed to arrive so quickly,” he paused as he watched Jin readjust the saddle, the posture of his back and shoulders exuding such profound amount of tedium that it almost made Ari falter. “I mean… Even if Francesca ran all the way-”
Jin cut across the servant’s question with an exaggeratedly loud sigh, tugging on the straps one last time to make sure they would hold before he deigned to give his servant an answer. “Goldie stole a horse, alright? You can ask her all about the details when we get home.”
“She what? You can’t seriously-”
Jin spun around, his face smile-less and hard in whatever stray patches of light came from the dimmed windows of the nearby houses. “Don’t underestimate her, mutt. She’s got more brains that you ever will and for some unbeknownst to me reason, she found it essential that you stay in one worthless piece rather than splattered all over the ground in some little side alley. Which,” Jin’s hand shot out and Ari stiffened as it clasped over his mouth and squeezed his jaw with unnecessary cruelty. When he was yanked closer to the taller man, he briefly considered struggling – rather than finding it in himself to do so, though, he stood completely still, enduring the graze of the snake’s breath as Straive slowly leaned to his ear. “Really didn’t seem like the case when I arrived. In fact, I have the vague suspicion that I was entering the picture to save those idiots from permanent mutilation – rather than salvaging your pathetic skin from much harm. Tell me, Ari, where does scum like you learn to fight? That first day I met you, I thought that performance you pulled off may have been luck; desperation. But another case like that? This is getting really suspicious, don’t you think?”
Jin’s digits dug further into his bones and Ari grimaced, intuitively lifting his hands to the offending grip, though he ultimately didn’t try to wrench free. His master’s lips stretched out, drawing a thin, sadistic smile across his face, as he pulled back to peer at the servant’s eyes.
“Think long and hard about what you’re going to tell me. Next time I ask, I want a satisfying answer,” with that, Jin abruptly let go and turned to mount the horse, offering his hand with a mock expression of generosity as he watched Ari rub the ache from his jaw. Biting back an insult, Ari let himself be towed on the front of the saddle and remained quiet the rest of the ride home.